The International Federation of Journalists called Saturday on the government of Zimbabwe to guarantee the safety of 15 journalists it has reportedly targeted.
The organization cited a leaked government report saying 15 journalists were working "hand in hand with hostile anti-Zimbabwean Western governments.”
Entitled "2008 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections," the report said the journalists should be “placed under strict surveillance and taken in on various dates set.”
The journalists include Foster Dongozi of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists; reporter Gift Phiri of the London-based Zimbabwean paper, who was abducted and beaten by police; editor Abel Mutsakani of Web-based news agency ZimOnline, recently shot by unknown assailants in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Standard editor Bill Saidi.
Saidi, who earlier this year received a brown envelope containing a bullet and a warning to “watch out,” told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the report reflects "panic of the worst kind" in the government.